"I don't know it at all," Carlita answered. "My mother was an invalid for years, and we never traveled."
"Ah, you have so much in store," enthusiastically returned the musical voice of the young man. "And there is no place under all God's sun where the grass is so green, where the sunlight is so brilliant, where the flowers are so gorgeous, and where the birds sing as they do in Mexico. The brilliant, thrilling coloring is so magnificent that it seems to fill one's veins to bursting with the very delight of living. How you will love Mexico! You speak Spanish, of course?"
"My father taught me when I was a little child."
"And you have not forgotten?" he questioned, speaking the words to her in Spanish as he smiled at her delightedly.
"I have not forgotten," she answered in the same tongue, the words flowing in liquid beauty as English words never could flow.
"It is such a pleasure to be able to speak the language sometimes," he continued, still in Spanish. "And—will you pardon me if I say you speak it exquisitely? Leith knows almost every other language under the sun except Spanish, and it is really the only one I care a copper for. Will you let me come sometimes and talk to you—some afternoon when there will be no one else? You know I am an invalid now, and am doing nothing but recuperate. I came near going off the other day with jungle fever. It's a nasty thing, and leaves a fellow so infernally weak. It would be a positive charity if you will let me come sometimes."
"I should be glad to have you," she answered, earnestly.
And then some one else was announced whose name she did not quite catch—another man—and then she saw that Leith Pierrepont had taken his friend's place.
She was conscious of a distinct shock that was almost anger. Her cheeks grew hot. She was angry with herself, and lifted her eyes to his face half in defiance, though of what she could not have told.